


I'll Believe In Anything

by mondragons



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Characters referred to by first names which I do realize is both evil & uncomfy, College AU, F/F, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-19
Updated: 2018-03-19
Packaged: 2019-04-04 10:44:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,358
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14018580
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mondragons/pseuds/mondragons
Summary: Fox was sitting in the creaky library chair with his head in his hands. His laptop’s screen shone brightly onto him, the Google page for “Is Mothman real?” proudly displayed. The weekend’s excursion had been a bit of a bust. Well, not exactly a “bust” but it’s outcome had not been exactly favourable either.





	I'll Believe In Anything

**Author's Note:**

> Would it really be a fanfiction I wrote if I hadn't written it for a class more than a year prior to it's publication here? It was creative writing, so I wrote an X-Files college AU fanfiction with all the names changed (Mulder was 'Fawkes', Scully was 'Safiya', etc.). It couldn't possibly be more me. Anyway, you can almost certainly tell I know nothing about how colleges work based on how the events play out. For that, I apologize.

Fox was sitting in the creaky library chair with his head in his hands. His laptop’s screen shone brightly onto him, the Google page for “Is Mothman real?” proudly displayed. The weekend’s excursion had been a bit of a bust. Well, not exactly a “bust” but it’s outcome had not been exactly favourable either.

 

A week ago, Mr. Skinner, Penn State’s conservation teacher challenged his students to go someplace they’d never been before to study the environment. As always, Fox had taken the assignment too seriously.

Fox’s thing was cryptozoology. It was a hyperfocus of his. The same was not true for Dana, Fox’s partner for this project and his closest friend. She had suggested they go exploring the hiking trail nearby that neither had been to. Fox suggested they take a roadtrip to Point Pleasant, West Virginia.  
Dana begged him to change his mind, but he could be pretty persuasive. It was hard not to indulge a crying man.

 

That weekend, the two took a trip down south. The project (if one could even call it that,) was not particularly difficult, the intentions being to identify native plants and animals and then to identify possible threats to them.  
With Fox working part time at a bookstore and Dana at a Starbucks, they couldn’t afford a motel room and chose instead to pitch a tent in a small campground outside the city limits.

 

The weekend passed swiftly and with ease, most of their time spent studying the environment next to the Ohio river. They’d received all the information they needed to get an A on the assignment but Fox seemed a little distant come Sunday afternoon as they packed.  
“What’s up with you?”  
Fox looked up at Dana who hovered above him as he rolled up the sleeping bags.  
“Hm? Oh, uh. Ha,” he laughed softly, “It’s kind of stupid, but I’m actually kind of sad that we didn’t see Mothman.”  
“You’ve gotta be kidding me. You really believe in the Mothman?” She laughed her way to the car and scooted into the driver’s seat. Fox stuffed the rest of their bags in the back and clamoured into the passenger’s seat, laughing as well.

 

On Monday morning, Fox woke to the sound of his dorm neighbors banging on the wall, yelling at him to turn the fan off. This was kind of a weird request considering Fox didn’t own a fan. The building was air conditioned. Though, there certainly was some sort of buzzing sound coming from his closet, which was definitely out of the ordinary. As he inched closer to the door, there came thumping as well as the buzzing. Being so close to whatever was inside was anxiety inducing to say the least, but Fox tried to rationalize it. Maybe one of his roommates was playing a joke on him.  
Fox thrust open the door and something jumped out at him. Something small. And fuzzy. And pink. And yellow. Something with wings and antennae and two legs. Fox repressed a scream, hoping not to infuriate even more people in the building.

Fox shot up and ran to the bathroom where he slammed and locked the door. He leaned against the wall, slid down, and sat with his knees pressed to his chest where he tried to recollect himself. He pulled out his phone and texted Dana.  
‘hey uh. we’ve got a problem.’  
‘???? elaborate?’  
‘it’s um. maybe just come over. but be careful when you open the door. don’t let anything out of the room.’  
‘okay look i’ll come over but this whole thing seems really shifty?? please tell me you aren’t breaking rules or bleeding out.’  
‘i’m not bleeding out just hurry’

 

Dana burst open the door and slammed it shut just as quickly.  
“Fox. You said you weren’t bleeding out but you didn’t say that you weren’t breaking rules and that seems maybe just a little bit ominous. Hey, wait. Where the hell are you?” she shouted.  
“In the bathroom,” came a muffled voice, “but I’ll come out.”  
The bathroom door creaked open and out stepped Fox, still in his pajamas. He moved warily, his eyes glancing over the room.  
Dana stared at him. “What happened?”

Something in one of the bedrooms buzzed. Their eyes darted over to the door.  
“Okay, look. Dana, please don’t be mad because technically this isn’t my fault.”  
Dana barged over to the door and thrust it open. Inside was a big moth. Or a little man in a costume. Or something weird? Dana’s jaw dropped.  
“No. No, no, no. No,” She gave him a sidelong glance, “Please tell me that isn’t real. There is no. Such. Thing. As. Mothman.”  
Fox slid down to the floor again, but Dana yanked him back up.

“Listen,” she started, “We are going to make a plan, okay?”  
Fox nodded frantically, “Okay. Yeah, okay.”  
“Okay, look, so obviously this is some sort of scientific discovery, right? I mean, I’m a bio major and I’ve never seen anything like this, so it’s gotta be new. Things just don’t look like that. So, what? We gotta tell Mr. Skinner or somebody. We also can’t let this get out before we can talk about it. Dean Spender will expel us for something. I don’t know what but it’ll happen and it’ll be terrible. Um, yeah. Oh! And we have to keep this away from your god forsaken friends. You know how weird they are,” she rambled on and on, hardly stopping for breath.  
“Okay, first of all, yes they’re weird but only I can say that. Two of all,” he said, apparently attempting a joke, “What are we gonna do with it? I mean, my friends are also my roommates so it’s not like we can just leave him here. Not to mention, it’s Monday. Skinner doesn’t teach until tomorrow.”  
“Shit, good point. Uh, I can take it and you can go to the library or something. Try and find out more information.”  
“What’re you gonna do with it? Put it in some sort of weird human suit like this is goddamn Monster’s Inc. or something? Thing’s not exactly discreet.”  
“Look Fox, I’m not an idiot. I know that. I’m actually trying to put some thought into this and I know that obviously it got here somehow. It clearly resembles a rosy maple moth so we probably picked it up in West Virginia, so it probably crawled into a bag or something. I’ll just put it back into one. I’ll just keep it in my studio with me.”  
“You’re gonna pick that thing up?” Fox asked, incredulously.  
“Fox. Bio major, remember? I’m not afraid of bugs. No,” she stopped him as he opened his mouth, “Not even really big ones with freaky human legs.”

 

So, Fox found himself sitting, rather defeated, in front of his laptop at the library. At least, until three strange figures loped in, rather loudly considering this was a quiet place. They all plodded on towards Fox and greeted him with a huge slap on the back, nearly knocking the wind out of him.  
“Hey Foxy!” said John, the youngest, loudest, and sweetest of Fox’s socially inept buddies. “What’cha up to?”  
“Hey, check the screen!” another one, Melvin, nearly shouted.  
“Mothman, huh?” questioned Ringo, more calmly than the others, “Neat!”  
“Mothman?” asked Melvin.  
“That wouldn’t make a bad article,” said John, dreamily, “Say Foxy, suppose we could steal your thunder and write about Mothman for our blog?”  
Fox heaved out a great sigh. “I don’t really care what you do.”  
“Hey, thanks Fox,” said Ringo, “You’re the man.”  
The three left as quickly as they’d arrived. Fox leaned back in the chair and dragged his hands down his face.

 

A librarian tapped Fox on the shoulder. He startled awake, the fluorescent lights nearly blinding him.  
“Excuse me sweetie,” the librarian said, kindly, “You’re Fox Mulder, right?”  
“Uh, yeah. Why? Am I in trouble?” he said, frantically.  
“I’m not sure. You’ve been called to the Dean’s office.”  
Fox’s eyes widened. He slammed all his belongings into his bag and rushed out the library door, running towards Dean Spender’s office in the center of campus. Too close to take a bus, but not close enough to walk to and still be on time. He burst in the door and saw Dean Spender’s glowering face dimly lit by the room’s lamps and he saw Dana sitting in a stiff chair in front of him, looking more nervous than he’d ever seen her.

 

The meeting was over quickly but Fox sweat his way through it. Spender had wanted to question them about the “news” article posted to _The Lone Gunmen_ , the blog run by Fox’s conspiracy loving roommates. The article mostly speculated that Fox and Dana must have seen the Mothman on their weekend trip. Spender said that he didn’t believe it was true, but as Dean of the school, he needed to make sure because Penn State didn’t need bad press. As a security precaution, Spender now had to walk with the two of them to search the dorms and just make “doubly sure,” as he put it.

Fox’s dorm was empty as ever, Ringo, Melvin, and John likely out in some forest or another, looking for UFOs or whatever. No Mothmen in sight. They didn’t find a Mothman in Dana’s dorm or studio either which Fox found simultaneously stressful and relieving as she was supposed to have kept it, though they now weren’t in trouble. Afterwards, they were released by Spender and allowed to continue on their day. They started to walk to the campus cafeteria.

“Fox, look, I know the Mothman or whatever wasn’t in any of my rooms but I swear it’s safe.”  
He looked at her quizzically.  
“Seriously,” she said, “Monica came over to watch me paint when I got a text from Spender. I figured it couldn’t be a good thing so I let Monica take it. She said she was going to J.D.’s and I trust her.”  
Fox sulked.  
“Come on, you can’t be serious. I know you’re the most paranoid man on Earth but really, I trust my girlfriend to take care of that thing,” she said, trying to convince him.  
“Fine.”  
“Look, after lunch, we’ll go to the Round Theatre and pick it up.”  
“What!? You let them take that thing to the theatre?” he asked, incredulously.  
“What should I have done? I’m not gonna let them miss class and I’m not gonna let us be expelled! It’s not like I had a choice!”  
Fox groaned, but didn’t continue to press her.

 

Picking Mothman up wasn’t actually so terrible. Monica had been smart about it, first wrapping it in a blanket and putting it in a backpack in the darkest corner backstage, somewhere out of the way where no one would run into it.  
When they opened the bag to check that it was still there, it peeped it’s head out, it’s red eyes bulging in the dim light. It was surprisingly kind of cute. Unfortunately, J.D. stumbled over while they were checking and they had to let him in on it too.

The night should have been easy, but Dana had made Fox take Mothman back to his dorm. Her argument was that his roommates would be more okay with a bug the size of a two year old than hers would. It made sense, but it was frustrating nonetheless as he now had to reveal the existence of Mothman to the most over the top people on Earth.  
“Oh, oh! Can we take a picture of it?”  
“Can we write another article?”  
“We’re gonna get so much publicity!”  
“No.” said Fox, “I can’t let you write about it, or study it, or take pictures or whatever. I already got called to Spender’s office because of the first article you wrote and Dana and I might get expelled for misconduct or whatever shit the Dean can come up with. I can’t let that happen, alright?”  
The three of them stared down at their feet.  
“Sorry you got in trouble.”  
“Yeah, that was our bad.”  
“That was pretty uncool of us.”  
“Well, it doesn’t matter now. Look, if I can just get this thing to Mr. Skinner tomorrow, it’ll be safe. That’s all I need to do,” Fox sighed.

 

Fox didn’t sleep easily, but when he did, he slept heavily. He woke up to the sound of buzzing wings and a blaring alarm. As he shot up out of bed, he put it together. The alarm was his clock, set to the loudest volume to make sure it woke him up. The wings must’ve been Mothman, who had probably also been startled by the noise. He turned the clock off and found Mothman flapping across the living quarters. The three stooges had already clambered off somewhere, maybe class or out to get breakfast or something. Fox fell upon his old instincts from when he had a baby sister, and he started cooing softly at the Mothman, trying to get it to calm down. It eventually came to a fluttering stop and toddled over to him where he reached down and touched the top of it’s fuzzy head. It was almost like having a pet. He felt bad about needing to put it in a backpack.

 

In Mr. Skinner’s lecture hall, Dana sat down low, near the front. Fox crawled into the seat next to her.  
“So, uh, when should we show him this thing?”  
“I was thinking after class,” Dana said, “I figured then other people probably wouldn’t see it.”  
Fox’s eyes widened. “Uh,” he started, “I understand what you mean, but do you expect this thing to really sit still in this backpack for an hour and fifteen minutes?”  
“Honestly? No, but I think it’s a better plan than trying to go now. Maybe when it starts to get jittery we can like, I don’t know, pet it or something. Maybe it’ll stop.”  
Fox rolled his eyes but he agreed that they didn’t really have any better alternatives.  
The lecture seemed never ending.

 

After learning about the fascinating world of fossil fuels, students poured out the doors, eager to grab a bite to eat. Fox and Dana were surprisingly the only ones still in the room.  
“Mr. Skinner,” Dana walked down the stairs, “So, about your project assignment from last week, Fox and I kind of… discovered something.”  
Mr. Skinner slid his glasses down his nose. “What kind of something?”  
“Well, it’s kind of like a Rosy Maple Moth but it’s a little… different. We brought it with us.” said Fox.  
The two approached the desk, opened the backpack, and watched Mothman burst out and do a quick fly around the room before landing at Dana’s feet. She picked it up and placed it on the desk for Mr. Skinner to see. His jaw dropped.

The three stood chattering about the creature, happily observing its different characteristics, its height; they speculated about its background and history.  
“It’s an amazing discovery,” Mr. Skinner said, absolutely astonished.  
“Indeed it is,” came a gruffer voice from somewhere in the back of the room. Out of the shadows in the hall stepped Dean Spender. “Quite miraculous.”

“Hello Mr. Spender,” called Mr. Skinner, “What brings you here? Are you alright?”  
“Yes, I’m fine. I’m merely following up on some reports I’ve heard. I’ve heard rumors that we have two students breaking campus policy. It’s my responsibility as Dean to see that justice comes to Penn State.”  
Fox and Dana stepped in front of the desk, attempting shield Mothman behind their backs.  
“Mr. Spender,” Dana gulped, “We don’t want any trouble. We just discovered something when we were working on a project. We thought our teacher should see it.”  
Spender ground his teeth. “You know we don’t abide liars here at Penn State. You hid a ‘pet’ in your dorms. You lied to me, the Dean, numerous times. I should have you both expelled.” His voice got louder and louder.  
He stepped towards them. “Fox. I read your roommates’ terrible blog. Unfortunately, it’s my responsibility to see what students are getting up to. Now, don’t get me wrong. Those kids are obnoxious, nearly more so than the both of you, but they aren’t liars. I knew something was up and clearly, I was right. Now, you have two choices, give me the creature, or be expelled.”  
Mr. Skinner stood up. “Now, Spender, these kids have had an amaz-”  
Spender cut him off. “Hold your tongue Skinner or I’ll have you fired as well.” He stepped even closer. A heavy silence hung over the room, tension ever rising. Spender opened his mouth once more, “I’m telling you. Deci-”  
He too was cut off as his phone rang loudly. He groaned and answered the call.

“Hello? This is Dean Spender of Penn State, what can I do for you?”  
The three watched his expression change over the course of the call. His brows furrowed, his anger becoming more prominent before his face started softening and he merely looked frustrated, as though he was merely talking to a customer service representative. He hung up the phone.  
“Listen. You two can hang onto that thing for one week. You’re being shipped out to Burbank.”  
“Wha- why?” stuttered Fox.  
Spender rubbed his eyes. “Ellen called and she wants you and that thing on the show.”  
Dana and Fox’s faces contorted. “How does Ellen know about Mothman? Like that it’s real?” asked Dana.  
“You don’t even know? Those stupid conspiracy bloggers posted videos of it.”  
Fox scowled. “I’m gonna kill them.”

 

Burbank was beautiful. So was Ellen’s studio. The two waited backstage anxiously waiting for someone to guide them out. Fox had a baby sash wrapped around his chest with Mothman curled up inside. Dana bounced on her heels. The anxious man with the clipboard and walkie-talkie pushed them out onto the stage.  
The questions were easy to answer, ‘where’d you find it,’ ‘why were you there,’ ‘what do you study,’ ‘does it have a name,’ ‘did you get in any trouble,’ and Ellen was just as lovely as television made her out to be. She was funny and curious and she let them speak and she laughed uproariously, along with the live studio audience, and Fox set Mothman on the floor and let him teeter across the stage.  
“Now,” said Ellen, “Since you’ve discovered something so amazing at just nineteen and twenty, and you both have such rich careers ahead of you, today I’ll be paying for all your tuition and paying off any student loans you already have. You’re going to college for free so you can discover more amazing things.”  
Fox cried on television and Dana was never gonna let him live it down.

 

The two arrived back at Penn State to learn that Dean Spender had been fired. Dana asked Monica about it and she said “It turns out when Ellen asks you ‘did you face any trouble,’ and you start ranting about how the Dean of your school is kind of horrifying and tried to get you expelled for no reason, an investigation is launched and your Dean is fired for misconduct.” Dana laughed until she cried, and then until she sobbed, and before she knew it, she’d broken down and bawled unabashedly as she realized everything that had happened in just two weeks.

 

Dana and Fox got in the car that weekend with Mothman safely buckled in the back and they drove and drove across Pennsylvania and Ohio until they reached Toledo where they walked into the zoo.  
They met with all sorts of wildlife specialists who talked to them endlessly, asking questions about Mothman until they were finally released after about four days. Two months later they drove back.  
A beautiful, large exhibit had been formed filled with all the native wildlife from Point Pleasant. The two walked Mothman up to the door of the exhibit and watched as it ran in and happily fluttered about it’s new home.

 

“Do you still not believe in Mothman?” asked Fox.  
Dana looked at him. “After all this, I’ll believe in anything.”


End file.
